Scott Lucas

So Marco Rubio, for example, was extremely tough regarding Russia and the Kremlin over its invasion of Ukraine because that attempt to break up Ukraine started in 2014, even before Trump's first term.

The full-scale invasion, of course, was from 2022, and Rubio called it out.

He has either because you say he has to be more diplomatic as Secretary of State or because Trump

is not as tough on the russians rubio's moderated his view there rubio has had to moderate his view in terms of the alliance with european states including with nato he still is the whisperer in europe's ear that it's all going to be okay but his fervent support for europe has been moderated by the fact that trump and indeed jd vance or quite happened to bail out on the alliance

And then, of course, as you note, I think the one area where he has sort of amplified his views is on the idea of American dominance in the Western Hemisphere.

Now, he would call it that, even though the American national security strategy does.

He would call it, for example, liberation, liberation of the peoples of Venezuela, the people of Cuba.

So you get this combination of a very, very forthright policy.

you know, aggressive policy in the Western hemisphere because Trump likes that because it seems to be succeeding and then being a little bit more cautious and nuanced when it comes to Europe and when it comes to the Middle East.

It all turns on 2020.

And if I take you back to that election, remember that that was the one that Donald Trump attempted to overturn all the way up to the Capitol attack.

An attempted coup, if you will.

There were some Republican legislators who came out and denounced that very, very strongly.

There were seven Republicans that voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges in the Senate.

Marco Rubio was not among them.

Marco Rubio was not amongst any of the senators who loudly talked about the January 6th investigation.

or indeed Trump's attempts to overturn the election, Rubio focused on other issues.

In other words, when it came to Trump, he kept his nose clean.

Then what he did was, is that he maintained, as it were, a profile where he appeared to be a very steady Republican in the Senate.

He didn't try to outshine Trump or overtake Trump.